


Welcome to Oakwilt

by autieami



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Black Humor, Spinoff, existential comedy, surreality, the unusual seen as usual, unexplained phenomenae, unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24383323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autieami/pseuds/autieami
Summary: The other day I wore an outfit that made me think “this is what Cecil Palmer would wear if he was a southern twink” and then this came from that so. Also I’ve been feeling a lot of existential bleakness lately so I decided to cope with that by writing about existential bleakness but like, in a funny way. Basically: Night Vale but if it took place in small-town Texas (a place that’s already rather surreal to begin with).





	Welcome to Oakwilt

Hello, readers, and welcome to the first editorial in the Oakwilt Examiner by yours truly. As the last editor disappeared under rather unusual circumstances—generally, people disappear in some dramatic and potentially murder-y fashion, not like poor Mr. Winston, standing in line at the laundromat and suddenly vanishing in front of onlookers who promptly took his remaining laundry—I will be handling that department from now on. And all departments of this newspaper, actually. The list of other editors on the bottom of the first page appears to have been for tax purposes only, as far as I can tell. Or else Mr. Winston was only following in the footsteps of his previously departed colleagues. Wherever he may be, I’m sure we wish him all the best.

Not to worry, I have no intention of making any major changes. The front page will still be devoted to breaking news—check out our story on the annual meeting of the St. Aloysius Knitting Club for a tale sure to leave you shivering in the dark tonight! The second page will be the editorial, which you are currently, presumably, reading. The third page will be sports and gardening, where today you can find out how to use five simple steps to revive dead plants. Be warned not to try the method near the cemetery. The fourth will be for the efforts of our talented local cartoonist, Jill Eggleston, who depicts local events with her characteristic charm and cosmic horror. And be sure to catch your horoscope on the bottom of the fourth page! Mine says that I’ll be born two days late. True, if a bit belated. 

The fifth page has been kept blank. The classifieds go there, but as we have recently had a spate of false advertisements intended to lure the unwary, authorities have asked me to keep classifieds to a word-of-mouth basis for the time being. Feel free to imagine whatever advertisements you wish to see upon the blank page, although calling the phone numbers you imagine is strongly disadvised.

Now. You will probably want to know a bit more about me before trusting me with your news. My name is Ellis Bloom, and I have only recently come to your fair township. I’m not quite sure what drew me here, to be honest. My family has always had a few members who—have an affinity for the unusual, let us say.

I was one of these members, always trying to take things apart to see how they worked. Clocks, radios, the entire kitchen fridge and contents thereof on one memorable and messy occasion, toys, the occasional stray cat, the toaster. An urge to discover, you might call it. Borderline unbearable, my mother called it. But I’ve always had this unshakeable feeling that there was something more out there, something strange and beautiful waiting for me to uncover it.

Something strange. And so much of life seems dedicated to the pursuit of complete and utter normality.

It’s interesting, the assumptions people make. They tell you quite a lot, sometimes far more than the person intended. For instance, most people assume that unusual things must be rare. This is completely failing to take into account that, given the relatively small spectrum of “usualness” and the therefore vast number of possible divergences, there is actually near-infinite possibility for unusuality. 

This assumption, of course, implies either that people have very limited imaginations or that they prefer not to imagine such things. If normalcy represents only a very thin slice of existence, perhaps it is not, after all, normal. Perhaps it is not the center of things, the ideal to be strived for. Perhaps it is simply another flavor of strangeness, one that they are so steeped in that they fail to recognize how utterly absurd and implausible it is.

Take the popular conception of Nightvale. Despite flying under the radar, so to speak, for a very long time, it has met with a certain “cult following” recently, largely due to the emergence of the internet and, with it, easy access to conspiracy theories. The existence of Nightvale is actually, by definition, a conspiracy theory. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real, of course. It very much is. In a sense.

But only a very few conspiracy theorists have thought of this: given the existence of one town that doesn’t seem to exist, might there not be many more? After all, the fact that nobody in the larger world has ever heard of any others only increases the likelihood of their existence, since part of the criterion for such places is that they’re at least largely unknown.

People prefer simple answers, though. If they are looking for El Dorado, and find it, they will be satisfied: here is the Lost City of Gold, the city of legend. This is It. The One and Only.

They never realize that for one city built entirely of gold to exist, there must be a far larger quantity of gold available than anyone would have dreamed of. 

And for one city such as Nightvale to exist—a place full of strange, incomprehensible, wonderful things—it implies the existence of far more unusual things, both in the sense of quantity and in the sense of degree, than anyone would have dreamed of.

I would never go so far as to call your fair township strange, dear citizens of Oakwilt. And I am sure that you yourselves could only be described as model citizens, the extrasensory appendages on sweet Daphne’s new terrier and the tangible aura of evil that radiates around our lovely Head of Events notwithstanding. 

Let me put it this way: I spent quite a while traveling, trying to find where I belonged. Looking for that elusive strangeness. I followed no map. Maps are not to show you the path to take; they are to keep you from seeing all the paths you shouldn’t take. 

When you drive around without a map, you’ll start to find all sorts of roads that you somehow never saw before, some of them vibrant and alive with colors that shouldn’t exist, others with a sweet air of complete normalcy, that nevertheless feels somehow like an anglerfish’s alluring mimickry of an ordinary street. Occasionally, you’ll find a town that doesn’t show up on any maps. I’ve been through a few myself, and I’ve met several of my cousins that way. All of the towns were quite fascinating—but I didn’t feel at home, for some reason or other.

But when I drove to the limits of Oakwilt, Texas, and saw the wooden sign stuck into the baked earth: “Population: Yes. Established: Probably. Motto: “Final Resting Place of Billy the Kidd, with many thanks to the Oakwilt Gravedigger’s Society!”

Well. Reader, I knew I was home.

As always, burn this paper one hour after reading. The chief of police thanks you for remembering your duty in this matter, and deputies will be stopping by random houses each day to ensure compliance.

-Ellis Bloom, Editor in Chief


End file.
